


Clothes Don't Make The Witch

by Chrononautical



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, The Shadow Campaigns - Django Wexler
Genre: Alternate Universe - Harry Potter Setting, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-04
Updated: 2016-04-04
Packaged: 2018-05-31 07:51:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6461998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chrononautical/pseuds/Chrononautical
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wouldn't it be nice if Jane and Winter hadn't been in that horrible work house? Or: The Hogwarts AU you didn't know you wanted.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Clothes Don't Make The Witch

Forget the O.W.L.s, Winter was going to have detention until she finished her N.E.W.T.s, and that wasn’t even the worst of it. Captain Marcus was the prefect about to catch her out of bed doing illicit magic, which meant she could also kiss Quidditch goodbye. Making the team in her third year had been her proudest moment, but Marcus wouldn’t keep her on his left wing if he couldn’t trust her. He shouldn’t trust her. She was sneaking out of bed at midnight wearing a Gryffindor tie and half a dozen spells, breaking not just the castle rules but the basic standards of good behavior. She had to, if she was going to prove to Jane that she wasn’t biddable, obedient, and completely boring. 

“Well, I like that!” the Captain said loudly. Startled, Winter pressed her back even harder against the wall. He hadn’t said her name. There was still a chance he hadn’t recognized her through her cloaking spells.

What was he doing in the common room so late at night? Had someone told him she was planning to sneak out? Feor was the only person Winter trusted enough to include in her plans, but there were three other girls in the fifth year dormitory. Any one of them might have overheard her practicing the Disillusionment Charm. 

“My apologies,” Marcus murmured. “My wand work is, well, to be blunt, awful. It’s not exactly flying, is it?”

Winter’s fear of being caught stopped her on the stairs for a long minute, but thinking about Quidditch meant thinking about Jane. The way Jane’s hair streamed behind her like the tail of a rocket when she rode a broomstick. The loud, carefree laugh she gave to the world whenever she scored a point for Gryffindor. Jane was Quidditch at Hogwarts. Kissing Quidditch goodbye was nothing compared to never kissing Jane again. She straightened her spine. 

“A figure eight, then a looping whirl with a flick at the end,” instructed a softer voice. “You can do this.” 

It was only then that Winter realized that Marcus’s presence in the common room was completely expected. He was studying with Rae. There was always a panicked student in the Hufflepuff common room with Raesinia late at night, trying to finish an important essay or squeak a passing grade on an important exam. Brilliant as Marcus was on the Quidditch field, everyone eventually needed Rae’s help. 

Whispers about Rae’s sorting were impossible to avoid at Hogwarts. Slytherins said her blood was too pure for Hufflepuff, that her family went back to Merlin and beyond, and thus she should have belonged with them. For once, the students who knocked Winter down in the halls and slurred about her parentage were the least offensive of the lot. Apparently someone like Rae not being sorted into Slytherin was like a royal not choosing Oxbridge for university. People would talk. It was the Ravenclaws saying she was too smart for another house and the befuddled way Gryffindors would admire her daring that really rankled. Raesinia was the Head Girl, the best of the best, and the fact that every single student seemed to think she could only have been sorted into Hufflepuff as a mistake offended Winter’s house pride. 

Every Hufflepuff was proud of Rae, which made sneaking past her and anyone with her an easy enough contingency to plan for. 

“Sorry!” Bobby panted, bouncing into the common room and right up to Rae. “Sorry, I know I should be in bed.” The big third year girl was anything but devious, but subtly reminding her about the package she’d left in the Owlery had been absurdly easy. Ensuring she forgot it in the first place had been the tricky part. 

“As long as you’re going there now?” Marcus prompted, formal and serious as always, but he wouldn’t dock house points for a student coming into the common room a little late. Not after such an eager apology. 

“Promise,” she said with a sideways grin. “I just forgot my mum baked these and I wanted to share them with you. I owe you so much for helping me figure out that Cheering Charm.” 

Winter slipped out into the hall as Rae was graciously accepting the treats. Neither seventh year noticed the common room door open as apparently no one passed through it. Slipping past the barrels that marked the entryway from the other side, Winter thought she was in the clear. Naturally this meant she didn’t even make it to the portrait portal to the kitchens before she was caught. 

“You might as well say hello,” Janus grinned, folding up a brass spyglass and slipping it into his robe. 

Winter didn’t bother to ask how he’d seen through her Don’t Look Here. What the Slytherin’s exceptional spellwork couldn’t do, he always had a clever workaround to manage. She wasn’t going to encourage him by asking about the spyglass. Unfortunately, she had to say something. 

“How did you know I’d be here?” 

“Where else would you be after such a public fight with your beloved? She accused you of cowardice, complacency, being ‘a pushover’, and not caring about her. Obviously the only way to keep her is to endanger yourself somehow as proof of your affections. Sneaking out to see her is the most natural course. I imagine she’ll approve.”

Listening to him analyze her potential breakup so coldly made Winter wonder if Jane wasn’t right to say that he pushed people around like pawns in a game of wizard chess. If Winter didn’t do something to make things up to Jane tonight, there was every chance that this was it for them. Winter was a skinny, boring, muggle-born tomboy and Jane was the goddess of Gryffindor tower. Unfortunately, there was every chance that Janus would welcome their breakup, since that would mean that Jane could never get in the way of one of his plans again the way she had that morning.

“So why are you here?”

“I am a prefect.” 

For a moment Winter almost thought he was serious. He had the best poker face in the school, though she was sure he didn’t know the game anymore than Raesinia or any other pure blood would. Chuckling lightly he threw her a package of Fizzing Whizbees. 

“Her favorite,” he explained unnecessarily. 

“Why would you want to help us make up? You hate Jane.”

One eyebrow cocked, Janus gave Winter a humorous look, as though laughing at the idea that he would ever be human enough to hate someone for personal reasons. Winter scowled. She knew him better than that. The quirk of his lips seemed to concede that he had once gently suggested that Feor and Winter would make a better match, but that was months ago and it had not been repeated. 

“You fought today because you were defending me.” In other words, Winter might one day need to choose between her Slytherin friend and her Gryffindor girlfriend, but Janus wouldn’t be the one to make her. “The history corridor is clear and your disillusionment charm is a good one. You should make it to the tower with no problem if you go that way. I’ve arranged to keep the ghosts occupied.” 

“Thank you.” It wasn’t enough. “She is wrong about you. Maybe you use people, but you never forget that they are people.”

Another twitch at the corner of Janus’s mouth implied a smile. “That reminds me. Our Head Girl will be receiving a letter at breakfast tomorrow. If you could delay her reading it until after lunch sometime to give me a chance to speak with her first, I would be most appreciative.” 

Winter nodded. It would be easy enough, and it wouldn’t really be dishonorable. She’d make sure Rae received the whole of the note eventually. The smartest girl in school could make up her own mind, and a few hours would hardly hurt a letter from home. Or whoever the letter was from. Still, Janus was Winter’s friend. She felt obliged to warn him that whatever he was planning might be pointless. “Rae was studying with Marcus in the common room tonight.”

The smile that lit Janus’s face was sudden and broad. It made him look like the teenager he really was. “Closely?” he asked in a low, gossiping tone. “Did she look interested? I know he is, but she’ll have to make the first move to get beyond his inferiority complex.”

Winter stared vacantly at him, unable to think of anything at all. Janus laughed. 

“You didn’t think all of these little favors were my attempt to romance the beautiful, well bred, brilliant, perfect in every way Rae, did you? Her father is a friend of the family and he asked me to keep an eye out. There’s a small matter concerning Professor Orlanko that would bore you to hear, but I do like her. She and Marcus are well suited. He’s a bit old fashioned, but, to borrow a phrase, loyal as a badger. If that didn’t matter to her, she never would have chosen Hufflepuff.” 

Fascinated though she was by Janus’s heretofore undiscovered desire to gossip about other student’s lovelives, Winter was most concerned with her own. “The history corridor?”

“Clear as glass,” Janus promised. And it was. 

Sneaking through the torchlit hallway still wasn’t easy. Winter didn’t like to break rules and she kept picturing the Headmaster’s face, or worse, Professor Orlanko’s dark, disapproving eyes. Surely being out of bed wasn’t enough to get her expelled, but she couldn’t stop imagining what it would be like to have her wand broken. Winter couldn’t go back to an ordinary, muggle life at that horrible orphanage. Her whole life had been cold and grey before Jane had bumped into her on her first trip to Diagon Alley, grinning devilishly and setting the world on fire to match her hair. Winter couldn’t live without having that grin directed her way, either. 

She had to drop the charm so that the portrait of the Fat Lady could see her, but she wasn’t overly concerned. The portraits saw so many students that they didn’t bother to learn faces. A young woman of the right age in a school uniform with a red and gold tie could say the password, “Iota Draconis” without fear. 

The Fat Lady blinked sleepily. “Out a bit late, aren’t you dearie?” She swung open without waiting for a reply. 

Winter had been in the Gryffindor common room before, but it was always nerve wracking, even with Jane pushing her every step of the way. Alone, she had no excuse. She shouldn’t be here. The over furnished room was always in disarray despite the best efforts of the house elves and Winter needed to carefully circumnavigate throw pillows, overstuffed easy chairs, and impractically placed tables. Luckily there were no late night studious types in this common room. It was so quiet she could hear her own frantic heartbeat. Out of bounds, without an escort, in the middle of the night, she’d be lucky to get a detention. If a teacher caught her, she would probably be expelled for this. They took interhouse conflicts seriously, and no one would believe she was here for a friendly visit. 

Somehow, by some miracle or demonic intervention, she made it to the girls dormitory without encountering anyone. Every step seemed to creak an alert. The door to Jane’s room practically shrieked in alarm as Winter pushed it slowly open. One of the other girls shifted in her sleep without opening her eyes, but it no longer mattered. Winter could see Jane. 

Moonlight washed the freckles from her pale skin, making her face even more luminous than it was during the day. Her long hair swept across the white pillow looking almost dark by contrast in the shadows of the night. Everything about Jane was absolutely beautiful, but Winter couldn’t stop staring at the gentle curve of her lips. This was why she had come, but now, in the darkness, Winter was no longer sure she was doing the right thing. Jane valued bravery, but maybe she wouldn’t welcome this. Still, Winter had to hope, and she couldn’t turn back after coming this far. Gently, quickly, she brushed her mouth against those perfect lips. 

Soft eyes fluttered open, going from sleepy to surprised in one mercurial moment. Winter fumbled with the box of Fizzing Whizbees, grateful for something to do since she couldn’t think of anything to say. After all of the careful practicing with Feor, she couldn’t remember a word of her well rehearsed apology. Luckily, the candy did the trick. Jane grinned. 

“My favorite,” she said, pulling her down and kissing her soundly. 

It was perfect. Kissing Jane was always perfect, but knowing that Jane was happy to see her was incredibly reassuring. Winter remembered how the apology was supposed to go. Trying to get the room to speak, Winter attempted to lean away from the kiss, but Jane was still tugging at her shoulders. Off balance, she tumbled onto the bed, landing half on top of Jane.

“Sorry. Oh geeze, I’m sorry,” she whispered quickly, which was not at all how the planned apology began. 

Jane laughed. Snatching her wand from the nightstand, Jane swished the bed curtains closed, exiling the moonlight, and tossed a muffling charm at them for good measure. Fumbling with her own wand, Winter used Lumos. If the curtains kept out the moonlight, a little wand light wouldn’t wake the other sleeping girls, and she needed to see Jane. 

“I like your tie,” Jane said, touching the knot gently and leaning forward to kiss Winter again. “I think you should keep it on.” 

“Of course,” Winter said self consciously. “I didn’t come here for...” 

Jane kissed the skin just behind Winter’s ear, driving all of the thoughts from her head for a moment, but she took a deep breath and soldiered on. 

“I came here--” 

“--to show off the tie?”

“No…”

“Because I didn’t know you were a cross-house-dresser.”

“I needed it to get past the portrait.” 

“I don’t know, you wear the tie and suddenly you’re breaking school rules, sneaking out at all hours, and finding your way into the beds of girls with bad reputations. It isn’t like you. I think it’s the tie.”

“I came here to apologize.”

Jane laughed, bright and loud. Winter might have worried about the roommates, but Jane’s spell work was amazing and hearing that laugh, knowing she was forgiven, was worth expulsion. “Well that isn’t the tie, but I still think you should keep it on.” 

“Of course I will.” Winter took one of Jane’s hands gently, smiling gratefully. “I just want to talk with you and make sure we’re okay.” 

“Winter, love,” Jane looked at her softly, like she was trying not to laugh, the way she looked when Winter didn’t realize something obvious about the Wizarding World. “We fight, but we’re always okay. I love you.”

Naturally Winter had to kiss her again after that, and again, until she was breathless and Jane decided to trail kisses down her jaw to her neck just above the suddenly very important tie. “I have to keep wearing the tie,” she said stupidly, because Jane’s clever fingers were loosening it and fiddling with her shirt buttons. 

Jane grinned wickedly, off balancing Winter again and pushing her down onto the bed. “I didn’t say anything about the rest of your clothes.” 

Since clothes didn’t matter much to Winter one way or the other, she decided to let Jane have her way. She was biddable like that.


End file.
